What is They're Our Kids?They're Our Kids is a FREE online resource for Hendricks County parents, providing a robust member directory and an informative blog designed to promote parental involvement. Our member directory is full of local providers of education, childcare, healthcare, youth sports, the arts for kids, and much more for active parents to utilize.

Parental involvement in their children's lives benefits kids through:

Higher grades, test scores and graduation rates

Better school attendance

Increased motivation and better self-esteem

Lower rates of suspension

Decreased use of alcohol and drugs

Fewer instances of violent behavior

Greater enrollment in postsecondary education

Parents also benefit from being involved. Communication and relations with children and teachers improve. Self-esteem goes up. Education level and skills increase. Decision-making skills become stronger. And attitude toward schools and school personnel improves.

Our Terminology

You'll see us use a couple of terms frequently on They're Our Kids: Villagers and OUR KIDS. What do those terms mean?

We believe in the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. Through that lens, then, we're all responsible for raising all of the children in our community, which led to the name of the site: They're Our Kids!

A Villager is a follower of They're Our Kids who is an active parent with their own kids, and who does what they can to help raise all of the other kids in our community by teaching, coaching, mentoring, tutoring, volunteering, protecting, providing a safe place for kids to participate in constructive activities, sharing ideas and successes and failures and suggestions with other parents, and/or simply being a positive adult role model for the next generation of our society.

OUR KIDS are all of the children in our community. When you see OUR KIDS in all capital letters, we are referring to all of them, not just the ones who reside with us. We're talking about our own kids, your kids, his kids, her kids, the neighbor kids, the kids down the street, our own kids' friends, kids at school, kids at the park, kids who are behaving, misbehaving kids, and most importantly, boys and girls of all races, abilities, orientations, religions, height, weight, left eyeball color, and anything else that our society uses to differentiate. Each and every one of these kids is loved and valued and important, and they are all OUR KIDS!

Our History

They're Our Kids is the result of Jan Currier, Eric Ivie, Gus Pearcy, and Richard Sutton working together on a group project for Leadership Hendricks County in 2006. They wanted to create a resource to increase parental involvement. The site originally provided a compilation of links to resources to assist parents of children in Hendricks County and to promote parental involvement, which is vital in the development and success of our children. A rudimentary version of They're Our Kids was launched in November of 2006.

Green was purposely chosen as They're Our Kids' main color because no public school in Hendricks County uses green in its school colors. We want to serve all parents, not just those associated with one school corporation or another.

By 2008, Ivie was the only one left in the group who had the time to keep They're Our Kids running. As his involvement with volunteer work increased, he learned more and more about our community, and he wanted to share what he learned with other parents. So in 2013, Ivie added a blog component to the site called The Village, sharing thoughts, ideas and experiences from raising children in central Indiana.

In 2016, They're Our Kids moved away from pages full of links to local resources, and instead developed a member directory that allows providers and local resources to shape and maintain their own information, keeping it as fresh and accurate as possible for parents.

Our hope is that They're Our Kids becomes a go-to resource for parents in Hendricks County and Central Indiana. We want to hear from parents about ideas you have, suggestions for things to investigate, problems with the website, where you could use some help with parenting, and anything else on your mind.

We hope you find They're Our Kids informative and helpful. We look forward to seeing you here time and time again.